Eternal Comforter, to thee!
PRAYERS
ON
SEVERAL OCCASIONS.
PRAYERS.
A Prayer for one desiring and seeking after the New-Birth.
BLESSED Jesus, thou hast told us in thy gospel, that unless a man be born again of the Spirit, and his righteousness exceed the outward righteousness of the scribes and pharisees, he cannot in anywise enter into the kingdom of God. Grant me therefore, I beseech thee, this true circumcision of the heart; and send down thy blessed Spirit to work in me that inward holiness, which alone can make me meet to partake of the heavenly inheritance with the saints in light.
Create in me, I beseech thee, a new heart, and renew a right spirit within me. For of whom shall I seek for succour but of thee, O Lord, with whom alone this is possible? Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me whole! O say unto my soul, as thou didst once unto the poor leper, I will, be thou renewed. Have compassion on me, O Lord, as thou once hadst on blind Bartimeus, who sat by the way-side begging.
Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest what I would have thee to do. Grant, Lord, that I may receive my sight; for I am conceived and born in Sin; my whole head is sick, my whole heart is faint; from the crown of my head to the sole of my feet, I am full of wounds and bruises, and putrifying sores; and yet I see it not. O awaken me, though it be with thunder, to a sensible feeling of the corruptions of my fallen nature; and for thy mercies sake, suffer me no longer to sit in darkness, and the shadow of death.
O prick me, prick me to the heart! Dart down a ray of that all-quickening light, which struck thy servant Saul to the ground; and make me cry out with the trembling jailor, “What shall I do to be saved?”